An Integrated Compile-Time/Run-Time Software Distributed Shared Memory System

On a distributed memory machine, hand-coded message passing leads to the most efficient execution, but it is difficult to use. Parallelizing compilers can approach the performance of hand-coded message passing by translating data-parallel programs into message passing programs, but efficient execution is limited to those programs for which precise analysis can be carried out. Shared memory is easier to program than message passing and its domain is not constrained by the limitations of parallelizing compilers, but it lags in performance. Our goal is to close that performance gap while retaining the benefits of shared memory. In other words, our goal is (1) to make shared memory as efficient as message passing, whether hand-coded or compiler-generated, (2) to retain its ease of programming, and (3) to retain the broader class of applications it supports. To this end we have designed and implemented an integrated compile-time and run-time software DSM system. The programming model remai...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1996
• Where: ASPLOS
• Authors: Sandhya Dwarkadas, Alan L. Cox, Willy Zwaenepoel
• Keywords: ASPLOS 1996, Hand-coded Message Passing, Message Passing, Programming Languages, Shared Memory